~ capturing my families' memories

Then and Now

My paternal grandfather, Claude Brown, worked for Singer Pipe and Supply. I’m not sure what his job title was but he referred to himself as the superintendent of the pipe yard and he and his family lived on the premises. Sometime around 1962 he stopped working for Singer and started working for Fife Manufacturing so they needed to move. My grandparents bought the home at 132 NE 16 where they lived until 1974. The photo above shows their house in 2009 then I added a photo of me taken about 1964 when I was 3 standing in front of the same house. I only have memory of two homes where my grandparents lived, NE 16 & NE 30. The house on NE 16th had so many interesting features to me. It had a basement, which for Oklahoma is unusual, and the stairs to it were the winding, creepy kind. Grandma would rarely let me go down them but she would always bring up fascinating things. Once she brought up some old toys that were my Dad’s.

It also had a separate garage/workshop and an apartment. There was a huge pecan tree in the backyard that made for a perfect shady place to play and dig. The driveway had a slight hill to it and I remember my cousin and I playing with a trash bag holder. Terri got inside the ring of it and I rolled her down the hill. I thought that hill was huge but seeing the home today, it doesn’t even look as though there is a hill.

The house just missed being razed to make way for I-235; it is on the last block before the street dead ends. We used to drive there by way of Broadway to 13th and turn east 2-3 blocks and then turn north on 16th. It always smelled like roast or bread as we drove there from some nearby business but for years I thought it was that Grandma was cooking a meal for us.

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7 thoughts on “Then and Now”

I don’t remember a food smell for that house, but there was a wonderful food smell when turning into the area for the Singer house and I always commented about it smelling like Ottie was cooking for us.

Welcome!

Delving into family stories, documents and photos is what I enjoy! Relative Storyboard: capturing family memories, is my blog where I share and encourage discussion about my findings. Often I only have tidbits of information that I piece together in hopes that one day I'll have a more complete storyboard.
I hope you find something of interest and I need your comments, if you do. So, if you have questions or if we share an ancestor I really want to hear from you. Leave me a comment or contact me at kayzie31 at gmail.com.